Notes on Modern Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Oxford

Page 62

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MODERN JAINISM.
Tirthankara
as one“ without caste, unaffected by smell, without the sense of taste, without feeling, without form, without hunger, without pain, without sorrow, without joy, without birth, without old age, without death, without body, without Karma, enjoying endless happiness." That is to say, the "holiest, highest manhoo 1 " that the Jaina set before themselves as their ideal is that in which personality is completely stultified.
All life is divided into two classes, Bluvi (2401) and Abhavi ( 24640?), according as it has or has not the capacity to become a Siddha, and only a Tirthankara or Kevali knows to which division it belongs.
The Tirthankara rather than the Siddha seem to have seized on the popular imagination; it is their images which
are in the Jaina temples, and legends of
de their gigantic stature and lives of interminable length are eagerly repeated.
Certain picturesque miracles are said to have taken place whenever any of the Tirthankara preached on earth; an as'oka tree springs up at the place and grows to twelve times the preacher's height, the dwellers in Devaloka listen to his sermon and scatter flowers from heaven: some gods sing and play celestial music, others wave a fly whisk in front of the preacher. A lion shaped throne and a state umbrella are provided for him by the gods, a halo of light encircles his head, and whenever he pauses to take breath in his discourse, a celestial kettle drum is enthusiastically beaten. A Tirthankara's preaching has thirtyfive characteristics, amongst the most important of which, from a hearer's point of view, are that it is always sweet, intelligible, accurate and interesting.